Hobbes's name was the basis for one of the characters in Bill Watterson's comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. |
The tiger in Bill Watterson's comic strip Calvin and Hobbes was named after Thomas Hobbes; the boy after John Calvin. A Wikipedia sidenote: Thomas Hobbes was the author of the quotation paraphrased by The Cunctator for Wikipedia's official logo: :Desire to know why, and how, curiosity; such as is in no living creature but man: so that man is distinguished, not only by his reason, but also by this singular passion from other animals; in whom the appetite of food, and other pleasures of sense, by predominance, take away the care of knowing causes; which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure. :Leviathan?, Part I, Chapter 6 |
Hobbes also wrote numerous other books on political philosophy and other matters, providing a fairly perceptive account of human nature as self-interested cooperation. He was also a contemporary of Descartes and wrote one of the replies to Descartes' Meditations.
[Philip Coates]? in "Wreaking Hobbes on mankind" ([Independent Review]?, 06/01/97) postulates that Hobbes's pessimistic view of human nature reflected the social and political situation of his own times.
The tiger in Bill Watterson's comic strip Calvin and Hobbes was named after Thomas Hobbes; the boy after John Calvin.